For whom the polls toll

There was a time in the 1980s when journalists covering election campaigns were informed by local busybodies at the tea shop that BBC had apparently reported that candidate X was “winning” from that constituency.

While this whisper was no doubt a commentary on the one-time credibility of the Beeb, the suggestion that Bush House would care to forecast the likely outcome of some godforsaken constituency didn’t strike some folks as laughable. But why single out the mofussil man for derision? How many times before an election have we been discreetly told about the “IB report” of the outcome, as if psephology was a core competence of the spook trade? In recent times, there are also versions of the odds being offered by the satta market — claims that are unverifiable.

Today’s India, it is said, has become more sophisticated. When it comes to assessing the mood of the nation or getting a preview of an election result, the inclination to rely on instinct, anecdotal evidence and unnamed “sources” has been replaced by an ostensibly ‘scientific’ measure — the opinion poll.

What began as a pioneering venture by a news magazine prior to the 1984 election has assumed epidemic proportions with the multiplication of TV channels. Today, polling has become a growth industry and, as invariably happens in India, good pollsters have been forced to co-exist in an unregulated industry with amateurs and outright frauds.

For ordinary people this poses a problem. There is a genuine and quite legitimate interest in knowing which way the political winds are blowing and with what intensity. But, confronted with an array of polls, with vastly varying conclusions, how is an ordinary reader or viewer in a position to judge which one is truly indicative and which one is the work of a charlatan?

For politicians confronted with an unfavourable prognosis of the final outcome, there is a ready-made explanation which, on the face of it, appears credible. How, it will be asked, can a poll based on a sample of, say, 25,000 voters accurately predict the voting preferences of many millions? The answer depends on whether or not the pollster has followed the principles of random sampling — a well-established and empirically tested principle of statistics. It is indeed possible to project an all-India picture of voting intentions with a sample of 25,000 to 30,000 if the principles of random sampling (which too has a method) are faithfully followed. However, if for the sake of showing a larger sample, the pollster merely goes to different bus stops or tea shops, as journalists do, the sample will not be representative and this will be reflected in the results. A telephonic survey will be subject to even greater errors.

It has to be pointed out that being faithful to the principles of statistics involves contacting voters at remote locations and costs money. The latest figure from pollsters of standing is that it costs anything between Rs 180 to 200 per respondent. In short, it would cost approximately Rs 50 lakh for an all-India poll with a meaningful 25,000 sample. The common sense question to ask is whether the media outlets can afford it. If they secure a poll at highly discounted rates, you can bet the poll is made-to-order.

The second point to note is that it is easier to predict voting preferences for a larger area than, say, a city or a single constituency. That is because the larger the area, the more chances of errors canceling themselves out. People should be wary of polls that claim to be privy to the knowledge of how a small corner of Delhi will vote.

Finally, while it is possible to broadly assess facets of the big picture such as the overall vote share, there is no foolproof method of converting vote share into seats. Pollsters often go wrong in their seat forecasts because there are so many conflicting regional and subregional variations, not to mention imponderables such as the turnout.

Opinion polling in India is an inexact science and rather than treating their results as latter-day variants of Nostradamus’s prophecies, it would be more judicious to regard them as loose indicators of trends. The sanctity of the counting day remains, mercifully, intact.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Well-known journalist and political commentator Swapan Dasgupta has worked for many leading Indian publications, including The Times of India. He thinks the Right is an endangered community in India's English-language media. "Right & Wrong" is one of the few voices of the community.

Well-known journalist and political commentator Swapan Dasgupta has worked for many leading Indian publications, including The Times of India. He thinks the. . .